House of Skin (34 page)

Not until you’re broken.

Mama? No, it was the bad man. What was his name? A number name, wasn’t it? One? Two? Three? Three? Two? One? Zero?
Zero?
Yes, Zero! I haven’t forgotten who you are, you bastard, you bad man you rotten terrible—

Noise.

Oh, that ugly noise and the light flashing on and off.

That voice speaking over and over. A man’s voice. Not Zero. Someone else. A man telling about his life over and over again. Every meaningless detail.

I won’t listen to your life! I don’t care about your life! I won’t be you! I won’t!

The voice ended sometime later. Hours? Days?

The badman was talking now.

What’s your name?

I won’t tell you that.

What’s your name?

I know my name, I know who I am. But I won’t tell you because it’s a secret, a private personal secret and I won’t tell you!

Your name?

I know it! Stennbetter! Starling! Studlater! Those are my names!

Name.

I know who I am I know who I am I know …
And he did and he didn’t. If he could only remember. Just think and you’ll remember, he told himself, it’ll come to you. Just think. That other voice started again, telling about his life. I won’t listen! He curled up and started to cry, sucking his thumb. I know my name, I know my name, it’s … it’s … it’s— But he did not know anymore. He knew very little. It had been seven weeks.

“Lisa? This is Gulliver.”

She’d been expecting Fenn again. “Oh, how are you doing?” she asked. “I’ve been meaning to come and see you. Things have been so busy lately.”

“Yeah,” he said, as if he didn’t believe her.

She felt a momentary pang of guilt. If it hadn’t been for him, they wouldn’t have even known what Spider and Eddy had been doing, let alone that Eddy was in the city at all. Conversely, if it hadn’t been for him, none of the shit that had rained down on her would’ve happened at all. But it wasn’t his fault. Eddy had a knife on him, so he’d had to tell about her. He’d risked his neck to help and had been stabbed as a result. Both Fenn and she owed him for that. And how had they repaid their debt? By not so much as visiting the man while he recuperated.

There was just too much going on.

And that was increasing by the day, it seemed.

“Is Fenn there with you?”

“No … I don’t know where he is.” And she didn’t. It was nearly eight and, as yet, he hadn’t stopped by or even called. Thank God.

“Is there anything going on?” he asked. “With Eddy and that?”

Where should I start? she thought. “No, not much. Spider killed himself and we think Eddy snatched the body. But you know that. There’s been a few more murders …”

Tell him about the rape and how you liked it.

“Yeah, I read about that.”

“I don’t think Fenn and his men are any closer than they were before,” she admitted and wondered if he sensed the cynicism in her voice.

“He knows what he’s doing,” Gulliver said, almost as if he were making excuses for the man. “Eddy’s slick, though. He won’t be caught unless he wants to be. It’s a game to him.”

“Yes, isn’t it, though?” she said under her breath, ugly memories blackening her thoughts.

“What?”

“Nothing.” She was silent for a moment. She needed to talk to someone, so why not Gulliver? If there was anyone in the world that wouldn’t judge her, it was him. “Why don’t you come by? I could use someone to talk to. Maybe we could have a late supper in the lounge.”

“I can’t.”

“Oh?”

“I have something to do tonight,” he said.

She didn’t like the tone in his voice. It sounded ominous. “Well, if you change your mind.”

“Maybe you should talk to Fenn,” he said, his words heavy with suggestion. “I’ll see you.”

He hung up and Lisa set the phone down and brooded. What had that meant? Talk to Fenn? Was it all that apparent that she was keeping something from him? No, there was no way Gulliver could suspect anything. She’d told him she needed to talk to someone and he’d just put two and two together. That was it. But, then again, maybe it wasn’t. Gulliver was self-admittedly a bisexual, someone who could see both the good and bad in both sexes. Not the sort of man who would be deceived by female beauty. He wasn’t like heterosexual men who were so blinded by physical looks that they saw nothing else. He probably saw her for what she really was and she didn’t like that at all.

But all that was minor. The thing that really bothered her was his insistence that he couldn’t come over, that he had something better to do. She was certain she hadn’t imagined the dread lurking behind his words. Was he going to do something foolish? Seek revenge against the man who had attacked him? She hoped not. He had no idea what he was getting into. Regardless, if Fenn and his cops couldn’t bring Eddy in, how could Gulliver hope to locate him? But the answer to that was grim: because Gulliver knew the streets, he knew the underworld and where a man could hide. The police did not.

She went down to the lounge for a light supper and a drink. Her mind was racing, heading for a crash.

If a man was truly dedicated and had a bit of money to flash about, there was no one he couldn’t find in time. And if you weren’t a cop or didn’t act like one, so much the better. Gulliver decided he knew how Eddy thought and once you had that going for you, the rest was only a matter of legwork and asking the right questions to the right people. That and biding your time.

His theory would’ve worked in time. It was logical, he knew, from start to finish. Once again he began frequenting the various leather bars and gay clubs. And much to his surprise, he was propositioned by dozens of men and a few women. It just went to show that you can’t find love; it has to find you. And all the thankless, frustrating hours he’d spent doing just that. Had it been any other time, he would’ve been flattered, but he found himself only irritated. He saw only business and that business was locating Eddy Zero.

In the few days since he’d returned from the hospital, he’d done nothing but scheme and plot. After he’d forced himself out of hiding and taken the offensive, he felt much better. It was a pleasant change of pace being the hunter and not the hunted. He asked a lot of questions and flashed a picture of his quarry around that he’d clipped from the newspaper. But that was only part of his strategy. Eddy was going to show up at some tavern or stroke parlor and Gulliver was going to be there when he did. He spent his days hanging around dozens and dozens of these places, making discreet inquiries and showing the photo about. Sooner or later, he would’ve spotted Eddy.

But as it turned out, Eddy—crafty devil that he was—spotted him first.

Gulliver was urinating in the men’s room of a place called Sonny’s and reading the graffiti on the wall. He heard someone come in and thought nothing of it. Not until the stranger came up right behind him and slid the gun from his coat with the ease of a pickpocket.

“Everyone in the place knows you’re carrying,” Eddy told him, prodding Gulliver in the back with his own little .22 pistol.

Gulliver hadn’t finished pissing, but his penis had shriveled up on him and that was the end of it. “Eddy?” he asked.

“Who else?” Eddy said, not letting him turn around. “So tell me now, why is it you’re looking for me? I was going to let you go after our last little run-in. I thought to myself: Well, the impotent little fag knows I mean business, he’ll back off like a good boy now, climb back into his hole and keep his nose clean … but you couldn’t do that, could you, Gully?”

Gulliver was trembling, words of defense simply weren’t available. “I …” he began and decided there was no use in pleading a case that didn’t exist.

“I’ve seen you off and on for the past two days,” Eddy told him. “Didn’t you know? You walked right past me more than once.”

Gulliver felt weak inside, his guts gone to stew. He chanced a sideward glance into the mirrors over the sink and knew Eddy was right. He had seen him and more than once. Eddy’s little disguise was perfect. Gulliver hadn’t thought Eddy would try anything quite so dramatic. He’d thought the man’s inflated ego would necessitate going as himself. Even if he had been looking for a disguise, he doubted he would’ve spotted him. The pea coat and longshoreman’s cap and sunglasses were perfect. As was the long black mustache and sideburns he sported. He looked exactly like one of hundreds of men fresh off the docks. In a port city like Frisco, the bars and clubs were always full of that type.

“Clever, ain’t I?” Eddy giggled.

“What now?” Gulliver asked. “Are you going to kill me?”

“I don’t know. I was thinking of raping you in the old naval tradition, but you’d probably like that too much, wouldn’t you?”

“Asshole,” Gulliver grumbled.

“Walk with me,” Eddy said, giving him a shove towards the door. “And don’t cry for help, Gully, or I’ll shoot you in the head. I don’t give a fuck how many people see me do it.”

Gulliver zipped himself and did as he was told. Eddy pocketed the gun and out they went. Gulliver started towards the bar room, but Eddy told him otherwise. “I think we’ll go out the back way. I wouldn’t want to lose you to another man.” They went down a short hall and through a door marked private that led into a stock room. Then they were in the alley.

“Where?” Gulliver asked.

“Just walk. I’ll point you home, don’t worry.”

“Are you going to kill me?”

Eddy sighed. “No, not me.”

Gulliver wasn’t exactly relieved.

* * *

Eddy steered him to a bleak, crumbling neighborhood not far from the Excelsior District. Crowds of nasty youths littered the sidewalks. Whores and criminal types of both sexes skulked in doorways and cul-de-sacs. It was a fearsome, depraved little stretch of real estate. It took them well over an hour to reach it and all the while Eddy spoke of things Gulliver refused to hear.

They went into a ramshackle house with a slouched roof, boarded-over windows, and a yard strewn with refuse and stunted trees. Eddy pushed him inside and turned on the lights. It stunk of dampness and old meat in there.

“Take off your coat,” Eddy told him, shedding his own.

Gulliver did as he was told. He was too tired to fight. This had been coming for a long time and he was accepting it now. If only it would be quick.

“Now the rest of your things.”

“You want me to strip?”

“That’s right. Hurry on, now.”

Eddy watched him, grinning the whole time. He took a certain interest in watching someone remove their clothes. There was something immensely exciting about it all.

“Well, what now?” Gulliver asked him. He sounded irritated, almost impatient with it all. “If you’re going to kill me, why don’t you just get it over with.”

“I said I wasn’t going to kill you,” Eddy insisted. He crossed the room and opened a set of doors. “In here.”

It was totally black in the room when Eddy closed the doors. Not a sliver of light found its way in.

“There,” he said, turning on a lamp.

It wasn’t much but it was something. Still, the room was dim and depressing. A dampness hung in the air, a stink of rotting wood and something worse.

“If you’re not going to kill me, then what’s the point of this?” Gulliver chanced. He was naked and defenseless. He didn’t believe for one moment that he wasn’t going to die. Nothing good could come of this.

“You’ll see.”

Gulliver heard a shiver of motion behind him. He turned and a figure clawed out of the shadows, something out of a nightmare.

“What the hell …” he managed, and saw the glimmer of a knife in the things gnarled paw. He had no time for recognition, only for pain. The knife slashed out at him and opened a gash in his chest. He went down with a cry and held his hand out in protection but the blade danced again and freed him of two fingers, leaving a third dangling by a grizzled thread. Blood flowed from the wound in his chest and spurted from the stumps of his fingers. A screaming, sobbing sound spilled wetly from his mouth in a mist of red.

“You said …” he began and then his attacker was close again and he realized for the first time who this night haunter was.

Eddy had done more than steal Spider’s body, he had breathed a sort of life into it. Spider was a desiccated and withered thing, stitched and stapled, a living wraith. “Gulliver,” he said, his shredded lips mocking a smile. “Fancy meeting you here.”

Gulliver stared and saw the dead man walk and had no trouble believing it. Nothing was impossible, he’d long knew, where Eddy Zero and Spider were concerned. He saw and accepted and concerned himself only with the blood that was vacating his body in red rivers. He knew enough about first aid to know that his wounds weren’t fatal. If he received attention and soon, he’d live to tell the tale.

“I said I wouldn’t kill you,” Eddy told him, “and I won’t. Spider will take care of that. Won’t you, my gutted lovely?”

“Fuck you,” Spider said.

What was this? Dissension among the damned? Spider was surely no innocent in all of this, yet was he beginning to learn what sort of abusive monster he was being used by? It was something.

“Kill him,” Eddy said softly. “Get it over with.”

“There’s no hurry,” Spider insisted. “I’ve got all night.”

“I want it done.”

“In my own way,” Spider insisted.

“Now.”

“Who fucking left you in charge?”

Gulliver watched the two demons arguing over his life. It was, all in all, the worst possible situation he could’ve imagined himself in. Nothing was even remotely comparable.

“Do you have to make a fucking drama out of everything?” Eddy asked.

Spider ran a skeletal hand through his filthy, braided locks. He brushed a few beetles loose and stepped on them. “That’s your problem, Eddy. You’re in too much of a damn hurry all the time. Moments like this have to be savored. Do you think the Sisters would have paid us any mind had we rushed through our other works? Quick and brutal killers with no imagination are a dime a dozen.”

“I can’t wait all night.”

“So go on.”

“Shit,” Eddy said and left, slamming the doors.